Book Review – Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs – A Beginners Guide

This book is a must have for all beginning herbalists. I do not believe this is an exaggeration in any way.

Rosemary Gladstar is an old school herbalist- she was taught by the generations before her. The introduction of her book details her life growing up on a farm and the meat of the guide itself is sprinkled with similar anecdotes.

The reference material is broken into a couple different areas- The first being the how to of making salves, tinctures, teas, lotions etc. She describes each process in detail, and in those details she makes it so easy sounding that you’ll be nodding your head the entire time, thinking to yourself how you should have been making your own medicine for years. Its just that easy! (which it really is, just takes time, practice and patience)

The whole rest of the book consists of herb types, brief histories, more personal stories along with properties of those herbs, recipes for medicines, further references and beautiful pictures.

I loved this book- I felt like it was easy to relate to, it moved from each topic to the next flawlessly and also had me ravenous for more info on the ability to use things you grow yourself (and common weeds!) to cure common maladies.

I bought my copy from Target, but this book is readily available anywhere you find reference books.